Carbon hotspots of office buildings in the UK

Abstract

Embodied carbon of buildings is receiving substantial attention due to the increasing statutory requirements on operational carbon of buildings. Even though the embodied carbon of buildings is not regulated at present there is a need to control embodied impacts of buildings because embodied carbon of buildings tends to increase as the operational carbon savings increase. Focusing on intensive emissions sources or the hotspots is an effective way of managing embodied carbon during the early stages of design though there is a gap with regards to the knowledge of carbon hotspots. Therefore, embodied carbon estimates of 28 office buildings in the UK were obtained and the carbon hotspots of buildings (in accordance with NRM element classification) were identified using the 80:20 Pareto Principle. Frame, Substructure, External walls, Services and Upper Floors were identified as carbon hotspots of the sample. However, findings do not support the 80:20 ratio in this case but propose a ratio of 80:36. In addition, the building elements were categorised into three types based on the probability of each element is being identified as a hotspot in the sample which is referred to as the ‘carbon hotspot probability’. The elements that were categorised as ‘Lead Positions’ and ‘Special Positions’ are the elements with higher reduction potential compared to remainder positions and require more attention during the early stages of design to achieve maximum reduction in embodied carbon.